Advertisement

The Royal Oak comes in many different shapes and sizes, and this year, we saw two completely new sizes - both 41mm and 37mm. We've shown you the Jumbo, the watch the harkens back to 1972, but in this post we explain you the other Royal Oaks that you need to know. These are the watches that, in most cases, one will be buying. These two watches feature AP's excellent 3120 in-house movement and are absolutely perfect for daily wear. Below, we show you live pictures of all the new releases, show you how they compare to the Jumbo, and how they differ from the previous 15300 Royal Oak that is now discontinued. We also give you pricing on the entire Royal Oak line.

This is a good one, people.

Wait, Didn't You Already Show Us The New Royal Oak?

Yes and no.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak we showed the very first day of SIHH is a special Royal Oak. Dubbed the Jumbo (Reference 15202), it is the modern day tribute to the very first RO from the 1970s. It is ultra-thin, doesn't have a seconds hand, and a bit quirky. The movement, while now dubbed the AP 2121, was actually built off an ulra-thin JLC caliber 920 in the late 60s (expressly for AP, though) and is considered by many to be one of the finest full-rotor movements ever made. It is used by a hand-ful of brands on license from AP, including Vacheron but its most famous implementation is within the Jumbo. Essentially, the Jumbo RO is for the purists among us. The 15202, while not a limited edition, has always been produced in low numbers and it always will be - it's a collector's piece.

So Then What Is The OTHER Royal Oak?

The average consumer for the longest time has been buying a different Royal Oak - one with the reference 15300 that uses AP's excellent in-house 3120 movement. This watch was the same diameter as the 15202 but a tad thicker (which many people liked) and it of course had a seconds hand. Here is an excellent article comparing the two. At the end of the day, the 15202 will be the watch that only a select few choose to own, while the 15300 was the Royal Oak that best fits day to day wear.

Ok, So Then What Was Replaced This Year At SIHH?

At the SIHH this year, not only was the 15202 updated with a new dial and bracelet, the 15300 was actually replaced by not one, but two new references. The 15400 is now your standard Royal Oak, sized at 41mm instead of 39mm, and we see the addition of a new 37mm unisex Royal Oak, with reference number 15450. Both watches will AP's in-house 3120 self-winding movement. To make it easier to understand, we've prepared the following visual aid.

So, to reiterate, the watch at left, the 15400 is your standard Royal Oak at 41mm and the watch at right, the reference 15450 is a brand new option. It does, of course, come in steel and without diamonds, and actually wears quite well on a man at 37mm just like the 37mm Royal Oak Offshore from two years ago (seen live here).

What Has Really Changed?

Besides the size, not all that much has changed, but that's the point. The Royal Oak is sacred to AP, and will always be the backbone of the brand, so when revamping it, they had to be careful. Though, one aesthetic change is the double hash mark at 12 - a trait that the very first RO of 1972 bore, and it wasn't until the Offshore Diver that we saw this again. The 15300 had the "AP" logo at 12. The famous tapisserie dials are still made the same, centuries-old way we showed you here, though now they are all made in-house instead of at Stern Creations. Here are two pictures of the steel and gold 15400 Royal Oaks on the wrist.

And here is a picture of the open caseback of the 15400.

And here is the new 37mm sitting next to the new 41mm.

Here is the 15400 in pink gold on a brown leather strap:

So, essentially, here are your two options for Royal Oaks (sized at 39mm or above):

And What About Pricing?

There is, of course, a difference in price between your 15400 and your 15202. The Jumbo is a more particular watch that will take some time to acquire (the waiting list was long in 2011 and we presume it will be even longer in 2012). It is ultra-thin, and quirky. It's not for everyone. Still, because it is so close to the original (see?) and because collectors have taken to it, it is more expensive. The 2012 price for the 15202 in steel is $22,500. In pink gold, it is $60,100.

The pricing of the 15400 is as follows: In steel it is $16,900. In pink gold on a leather strap as seen above, it is $33,800. In pink gold on a pink gold bracelet, it is $64,800.

The 37mm Royal Oak 15450 starts out at $16,300 in steel and climbs to $31,000 in pink gold. There are other prices available for the 15450's with diamond bezels, we didn't think those were applicable here.

I love the Royal Oak Jumbo, I think that is pretty clear by now. So when we were showed the new RO's from AP yesterday at SIHH, I just had to bring along my own early Royal Oak to see how the new Jumbo would compare. My RO is an A-Series, that dates to 1972 - that's the watch at left. The watch at right is the brand new 15202 Jumbo with "AP" at 6 o'clock, a watch that was literally introduced to the world first just 24 hours ago here on HODINKEE, and won't hit stores for some time.

Two years ago, Audemars Piguet released their first real diver – the Royal Oak Diver – and it’s been a huge success for the brand (We reviewed it in its briny element here.) For 2012 comes a new carbon fiber version with ceramic bezel. Sporting the same dimensions, mega-tapisserie dial, 3120 automatic movement and rotating inner timing ring as the steel Diver, the new version has a decidedly more sporty appearance, thanks to the yellow minute hand and 15-minute arc on the timing ring.

The Royal Oak Offshore Diver from Audemars Piguet was one of the hottest
announcements at SIHH 2010. Clients waited for months to get their
hands on this watch, the first diver from AP to be ISO certified and
one that many deemed to be the second coming of the original Royal Oak,
a watch that would define a category. Most viewed the Diver as a
luxury sport watch, and it is, but we wanted to test the Diver in the
conditions that it was engineered for. So, we gave this $17,100 luxury
timepiece to our resident dive watch expert and set him free in the
waters of Bonaire. He took it 100 feet into the ocean, into a
shipwreckked drug boat, and back out for one week's time. Here are his
findings. Oh, and of course, we video-taped the whole thing. This just
might be the very first review of the Royal Oak Offshore Diver, as
written by an actual diver

The Openworked Royal Oak (reference 15305) was introduced at SIHH 2010 but really only began hitting stores in the past few months. The watch is absolutely awesome, and from we we hear, is next to impossible to find. At roughly $30,000, we view the Openworked RO as the first of two "entry level" haute horology products from AP - the other being the new Millenary 4101 that Ben raved about after SIHH.

What makes this watch so interesting is its youthful, industrial tone. Many skeletonized watches can take on an ornate, almost formal look, but this Royal Oak avoids that, to its credit. The caliber 3129, which is the openworked version of AP's in-house 3120 found in the traditional ref 15300 RO, is really something you need to see in the flesh to appreciate, though we've done our best here with live pictures and HD video.

Also, being based on the 3120 movement and not the 2120, this skeleton is a bit thicker and sturdier than previous openworked Royal Oaks. This beefier stature plus a screw down crown mean one could wear the 15305 and not have to baby it at all. In fact, this watch holds the exact same dimensions as the normal 15300.

The Openworked Royal Oak is currently available through Audemars Piguet boutiques and AD's, though we've heard they are very hard to come by. The MSRP is slightly above $30,000 in steel and more details may be found here.

Editor's Note: All pictures below may be expanded by clicking on them, and with this watch, it is highly recommended.

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak (Ref 15300) is the base model Royal Oak, but it's nothing to sneeze at. The movement used inside the 15300 is the caliber 3120, a completely in-house developed manufacture movement with a 60 hour power reserve.

The Royal Oak Openworked, the watch you see to the right, is new for 2010 and features a new caliber, the 3129. The 3129 is derived from the 3120 in the traditional Royal Oak, but is competely re-worked via "restrained, pure cut-outs, straight satin-brushing on the mainplate and on the bridges, and an intensification of colours, contrasts and shades achieved by entirely hand-crafted bevelling."

Essentially, what we have here is a high-contrast skeletonized Royal Oak using an amazing breadth of shades of grey. This watch is absolutely stunning.

"The technical characteristics of the 253-part Calibre 3129, which drives displays of the hours, minutes and central seconds, include its cross-through balance- bridge ensuring exceptional shock-resistance and its direct drive seconds hand that avoids any jerking. The rating accuracy is particularly stable thanks to the use of a variable-inertia balance fitted with eight inertia-blocks."

The Royal Oak Openworked will be available in Stainless Steel (pictured) and Rose Gold on a brown leather strap. Prices will begin around $30,000.

For more details on the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Openworked (Ref 15305), click here.

We recently spent some time with Audemars
Piguet at their home in the charming Le Brassus, Switzerland. In their
museum sat several historically important watches - the original
AP-devised Cartier Tank Francais and the first ever automatic tourbillon
wristwatch included - but what we were immediately drawn to were the
variations of the Royal Oak that we simply had never seen before.

Advertisement

Friday March 3, 2012

HODINKEE is one of the most widely read wristwatch publications in the world. Launched in 2008 by then 25-year-old Benjamin Clymer, the site quickly gained notoriety for earnest looks at some of the industry’s most interesting, and occasionally forgotten timepieces.